BJP renominates Joshi as PAC chairman

Sibal continues slanging match on PAC report

Even as Lok Sabha member and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi was nominated by his party for a second term as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (the first one ended yesterday), the political slanging continued on its draft probe report on the telecom scam.

By convention, the PAC is chaired by a member of the opposition. The BJP is the largest opposition party.

Union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal termed the draft, prepared under Joshi’s chairmanship and rejected by a pro-government majority on the PAC, as "not a report".

"The PAC chairman (Joshi) himself said he had adjourned the meeting (for adopting the report). A report has to be adopted either unanimously or by a majority. In any case, it was not adopted by a majority, so there is no report," Sibal said. “When did the adoption take place?”

Joshi has presented the draft to the Lok Sabha’s Speaker as adopted by the PAC. Sibal added that the Speaker’s decision would be accepted by the government. "Naturally (then),the government has to accept... We are bound to,” he said.

Sibal noted that at the meeting convened by Joshi on Thursday to consider the report, 11 of the 21 panel memebrs -- nine from the Congress-DMK and one each from the BSP and SP -- gave letters to Joshi that they were rejecting the report.

Asked whether the proceedings that took place after Joshi had adjourned the PAC meeting (when the 11 pro-government members said they’d passed resolutions rejecting the report and electing a new chairman)had any significance, Sibal said, "The votes have been submitted to the (Lok Sabha) secretariat."

When told that the PAC chairperson has to be from the Lok Sabha and a Rajya Sabha member could not have chaired the meeting after Joshi's adjournment, Sibal said it was common law that any person can act as the presiding officer, though "not as chairman", for a particular meeting.

Congress member from Rajya Sabha Saifuddin Soz had 'chaired' the PAC 'meeting' on April 28 after Joshi had adjourned it.